Hockey isn’t even my number TWO sport, but Gretzky was a wonder. He was unlike any other hockey player. It was like watching Barry Sanders play football if Sanders could fly and found a way to legally carry the ball up into the stands. He has no equivalent in other major North American sports, and it was immensely fun to watch.
Eric “Hey, I got the Philosophy” Cantona had his share of highlight reels.
Heh - the look on Renaldo’s face…utterly priceless.
Charlestown Chiefs
Trea Turner. For his slide alone.
Anderson Silva
Conor McGregor
I only know him from youtube clips but Butterbean. His stunt with Johnny Knoxville is so funny.
It was kind of scary afterwards. Knoxville was legitimately hurt.
That stunt is kind of a case study in the difference between pro athletes and amateurs. Butterbean invited Johnny to hit him first and then bangbangbang Knoxville has a bad concussion. Knoxville is six feet tall and a reasonably athletic man, and his punch had no effect and he didn’t last ten seconds.
Yes, that’s the joke. Butterbean is a knockout artist and Knoxville lets himself get hurt for a living.
But was Butterbean ok?
Most don’t consider race car drivers as athletes but some can put on a show that transcends the average to the great. Two I saw in action come to mind. Bobby Allison absolutely destroying the best stock car drivers of Northwest and Steve Kinser passing the entire field of sprint cars to win after spinning out on lap 27 of a 40 lap race.
I’m not especially into tennis, but the 2008 Wimbledon men’s singles final, between Federer and Rafael Nadal, is arguably the most exciting sporting event I’ve ever seen. Rain kept delaying play, so the whole match took almost 5 hours, of which I only caught the last three; but I was glued to the TV when those two extraordinary athletes were battling on Court One.
Oh absolutely. Having those two playing at that level for that long was just taking the piss really. Tennis fans were spoiled by almost a full decade of Federer, Djokovic, Nadal and even Murray, all at full bore and serving up classic after classic but 2008 was possibly the best. Here’s a nice little summary
I recall also that these were the early days of the super-slo-mo high-def cameras and being able to watch Federer winding up and releasing a whipped cross-court forehand in that level of detail was a thing of jaw-dropping beauty. The technology should have been invented purely for that purpose.
Is it recency bias or have tennis, basketball, American football, and soccer all had arguably their GOATS competing at the same time? Any other sports in there?
I guess we have to wait to see if historical evaluation stands up to really say if it was true or if it was just bias.
Baseball’s GOATs are spread across multiple timeframes.
There may well be some recency bias in there. I think part may also be that, thanks to improved sports medicine and training techniques, as well as massively higher salaries (allowing for top-level athletes to focus on training and athletics year-round, and not having to engage in non-sports jobs to earn a living), all else being equal, today’s top athletes may be in even better shape, and able to achieve even more, than their counterparts from decade ago.
It’s a phenomenal era for cycling - what would usually be described as generational talents, just all racing together e.g. Wout van Aert, Mathieu van der Poel, Tadej Pogacar, Tom Pidcock, Remco Evenepoel, Julian Alaphilippe (bit older than the others). It’s a step-change in the sport as they have won immediately at young ages - traditionally you’d need to be pretty seasoned to get at the sharp end of a Classic race or contest a Grand Tour GC.
In terms of fun to watch, MvdP is what you get if you asked a Marvel comic book artist to draw a cyclist. Instantly recognisable just from his silhouette - cycling commentators talk about ‘animating’ a race, MvdP blows them up. Greatest cyclocross rider of all time and rides with supreme panache on the road.
Currently, I would say that the most exciting hockey player to watch is McDavid, by a huge margin. He has so much skill and talent but the fact that he can use all his skills at top speed makes him so incredible. You can watch highlights of some of his goals and he is moving to fast to see exactly what he is doing. When you watch the highlights in slow motion, he still looks like he is moving at regular speed.
Yes, most of these probably played for Pittsburgh at one time or another. Ask me if I give a Penguin’s ass.
Troy Polamalu
Jerome Bettis
Darius Kasparaitis
Teemu Selanne
Brooks Orpik
Jaromir Jagr
Marc-Andre Fleury
Roberto Luongo
Jerome Iginla
And finally, I can’t BELIEVE nobody mentioned Mario Lemieux! Even Gretzky thought he was better at many things, and really, the only reason Lemieux didn’t break many of Gretzky’s records is because his health was so poor. The guy was a beast! I could watch that video of him scoring on Casey over and over and over and never get tired of it.
Jerome Bettis?! What an incredibly boring player. 3.2 yard carry after 3.2 yard carry. I just watched a highlight reel of him to see if my memory was playing tricks on me. I fell asleep and every highlight from his career was only 4 minutes.
Devin Hester returning kicks was the most excited I’ve been watching football.
Mine too. Michael Jordan was crazy fun to watch play.
I only follow baseball, and some of the most fun players to watch were the ones who made me nervous:
Ichiro - Somehow he was halfway to first while making contact
Rickey - Just relentless. Dreaded him getting on base.
George Brett - A cyborg hit machine
Pedro - The GOAT? It’s possible.
Manny Ramirez - the only times he didn’t do damage was when he didn’t feel like it.
Right now, the most fun to watch Yankee is Nestor Cortes. How is he doing it? I’m completely mystified by this guy’s success. Fun as hell, but wtf?
Jorge Paez was a very entertaining boxer. His boxing style was unique from combining skills he learned working as a circus clown and acrobat starting as a child. He was very successful initially in his career working his way up to winning a featherweight championship, coming from behind on the scorecards by knocking down his opponent 3 times in the final round. That turned out to be the last 15 round title fight in boxing. Paez had a long career, after his prime fighting days were over he continued boxing, facing lesser opponents into his 40s, continuing to entertain crowds with his amazing boxing style.